Foolproof Reason Exemption

Foolproof Reason Exemption

Dealers
& Takers of Pestilence & Poison:

Well, Scott Walker won. As I write this piece on 06/06/2012, running against Democrat
Tom Barrett, Walker was declared the outright winner last night for the Wisconsin governorship recall election…may
Wisconsin now rest in peace.

I find this a bit uncanny. For average Wisconsinite
voters to allow a governor to continue his exploits of — (1) diminishing bargaining rights and pension
plans for union and state employees along with their families’ securities, (2) fighting
against minimum wage laws, (3) quietly signing into law the state’s repeal of
the ‘Fair Pay Act,’ (4) cutting social programs while lowering taxes for the
state’s corporations and wealthiest individuals, (5) secretly professing he was trying to
divide and conquer, (7) led Wisconsin as the worst state in job creation, (8)
resorted to balanced budget expense gimmickry, (9) turned Wisconsin into the
most regulated state in voting rights and (10) Tim Russell, a former indicted
Walker aide putting to bed any doubts that indeed Walker is under criminal
investigation — is a quandary. It is an impractical dilemma.

We all are aware how Walker took away
union rights in bargaining and drastically lowered donations to state employee
pension funds, but he has also increased government control. His governorship
won’t allow districts to raise taxes even if the district majority wants to. In
particular in sex education and science, he has dictated what teachers are to
emphasize and not teach and has forbid school boards from bargaining with
teachers. I thought conservatives were all about less government control than
more? Walker has injected more government control into daily lives, not less.

He has dropped integrity from entering
into leadership roles. With no less than ten felony charges against members of
his staff, we now know Walker himself is under criminal investigation that he
himself would never admit to. He has been quieter than an house mouse in
building a defense fund, in which no other U.S. governor ever has. Walker won’t
divulge any information on the amount of the fund nor where the money
originated. It certainly is not from his own pocketbook, but where…from his
outside interests groups or worse, the taxpayer’s dime?

As mentioned just above, Walker’s
campaign aide and once very close associate, Tim Russell has stated Walker
deceived and stonewalled prosecutors’ investigation into the theft of tens of
thousands of dollars from ‘Operation Freedom,’ a veteran’s charity by Walker’s
county executive office. Walker prompted the prosecutors to open up a ‘John
Doe’ investigation into his office in making it appear anonymous and not
directly linked to him.

No matter how Walker’s office fudges
statistical numbers, his job rating has been a dismal failure overall. Walker
promised to create over a quarter million jobs once his mandates were employed.
Instead, Wisconsin has actually lost jobs. According to the U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics’ monthly state employment data, Wisconsin lost 33,900 jobs in
2011. From the spring of 2011 to the spring of 2012, Wisconsin led the nation
in job losses according to the bureau’s data. The Bloomberg Economic Evaluation
of States ranked Wisconsin 42nd out of the 50 states in economic
health during 2011.

Walker attempted to knock 64,000 low
income families from the state’s healthcare system, which included over 30,000
children until the Obama administration stepped in stressing he’d better not,
for it’s unlawful. His most stringent voting rights restraints, which are the
nation’s toughest (and that’s saying a lot for there are a number of Republican
governors instituting strict voter laws into their states) were deemed unconstitutional
by two federal courts due to the extreme suppressive nature of the new Walker voter ID laws.

Walker’s seeking out corporations to
move into his state by making them tax exempt that are the same corporations
that normally go elsewhere for tax havens or overseas in seeking low wages. He’s fixing that
by eviscerating union worker rights, repealing the ‘Fair Pay Act’ for women,
fighting against raising the minimum wage, keeping it inconsistent to
inflationary rate increases and would like to make it legal for employers to
hire below minimum wage scales. Currently 90,000 Wisconsinites receive minimum
wage pay at their jobsite.

A documentary video that just a couple
of months ago went viral, shows Walker telling a billionaire donor that he
planned to set up a “divide and conquer” strategy to take away working people’s
rights. The donor later gives Walker’s campaign the largest donation a
Wisconsin governorship has ever received of $500,000.00. Before the video ever
arose, if you may recall, Walker was caught in a radio station’s prank call
impersonating David, one of the multibillionaire oil heir Koch brothers. Fooled
into thinking it was actually David Koch, Walker admitted during the twenty
minute conversation that he was attacking unions as part of a large ideological
scheme that had nothing to do with his publicly stated reason of trying to
balance the budget.

Ya know, a true leader has the ability
and does his darnest to unite, not divide and conquer his constituents.

Bank companies as of late have been flagging
Wisconsinite credit cards and denying access for further usage. Why? Because
‘Friends of Scott Walker,’ part of the governor’s campaign committee, had been
charging small amounts (usually no more than $5.00) to various individual’s
cards without the owner of the cards ever knowing. The banks caught on to
this, flagged and denied no more access to the cards to protect the owners, for
these charges were fraudulent. The owner never knew of the problem until they
used their card and found that access was denied. Calling the banks, the credit
services explained to the beleaguered card owners that they had had a rash of
charges going to the ‘Friends of Scott Walker’ with clients complaining they
never used their card to donate to the committee.

How did the Walker committee gain access
to the cards? They used an online collection system that made online credit
card holder’s information accessible even to amateurs out to get personal info.
‘Restore Our Future,’ a superpac supporting Mitt Romney has done the same
thing.

ProPublica, a public investigative
journalism group, called ‘Friends of Scott Walker’ to comment on the breech or
give some form of explanation, but no one would comment until later, when
Walker’s campaign spokeswoman, Ciara Matthews e-mailed ProPublica stating,“I received
a message about the story you are doing. The campaign does not comment on
internal matters.” ProPublica wrote back
to the address of the e-mail stating, “How about allegations of credit card
fraud that’s hardly internal…that’s external.” They never received a reply.

This is total hogwash. On top of all
this, Walker, in making it appear he has balanced the state’s budget, has
borrowed money on credit to erase the state’s deficit. Further to plug holes in
the state budget, Walker and Republican Attorney General J. B. Van Hollen took
and used 18% of national mortgage settlement monies which was given to
Wisconsin by the federal government originally intended to relieve financially
strapped homeowners. Of course this only adds to the structural deficit and
places the burden squarely on future generations to pay for it. Walker’s over
half billion dollars credit card approach will cost future Wisconsin taxpayers
$150 million dollars in interests.

I’m quite sure there are many a liberal
out there depressed by Walker’s triumph in the recall election. For
conservatives, this will only embolden them to spread and attempt to enact
their gospel throughout the political arena. The likes of pansy Karl Rove and
the Koch brothers are even more delirious now to get out their deceptive ads
and commercials, for they do work apparently. Walker outspent Barrett almost 8-1. I’m sure big interest money may feel like this was just an appetizer
prelude to the smorgasbord in November. This GOP election victory will be perceived
as an omen. But I don’t think this is a winners win and losers lose scenario,
for the admixture is sliced into too many separate components.

Once the initial shock value wears off, liberals and progressives need to dust off and get back to pointing out
the facts. Definitely don’t give up due to one defeat. It happens. Recognize
it, learn and become all the better for it. Seeking a corner to hide in and
lick the wounds slashed from this one result is fine up to a certain point.
Also, losing your temper is no way in getting rid of it…the result and your
temper. Don’t just work harder, work smarter and electoral wins will come your
way. But by all means…stick to truth. That one item of spreading
misinformation, deceit and falsities will bite the GOP in the vernaculars.

This is by no means an harbinger of
political portent. It was merely one election.

First off, the gut worms and toxic tobacco spit that Wisconsinite voters willfully took from the Walker & GOPs
delivery service will have its impact. They are in for a real treat that will
have backlash for the average citizen. Under Walker there will be more than
just another recall, there will be a revolt.

From this one outcome there are still
some possible silver linings looming for liberals. There stands a very good
chance of Walker even being indicted with criminal charges, prosecuted and
sentenced in the near future. The frenzied media attention to this historical
recall election that has only happened two other times in American history
overlooked the fact that John Lehman (D-WI state senate) was victorious in his
recall bid to take the seat of state senator Van Wanggaard (R-WI) giving
Democrats the edge in the state senate. This makes Democrat Senator Mark Miller the new
senate majority leader. So the results might not have been sweet, but they most
certainly weren’t so bitter. It turns out that the Wisconsin recall was simply
bittersweet.

Stupid
Is What Stupid Gets:

Ok, let’s think about this one for a
moment. Due to global warming and their extensive analysis, the N.C. Coastal
Resources Commission’s scientists determined that the ocean will rise a meter
above North Carolina’s current coastline before the end of this century. The North
Carolina Republican legislatures took offense to the scientists’ studies and
decided that they don’t like the evaluation. So they got together in the
legislative chamber and passed a bill making the scientific result illegal. Really,
they did.

In addition, they are striking the experts
forecast from the public record. This new bill will basically prohibit
government agencies from ever preparing for the three feet plus rise in ocean
levels.

Forever why…who knows? Perhaps because
it is based on global warming and that surely is a myth perpetrated by science…right?
Or maybe it’s due in part to fear of losing hundreds of million dollars, if not billions in coastline
development. I suppose they’d prefer to ignore facts and develop in a high
contingency zone risking property, homes and lives for that dollar bill.

In Mississippi, state Rep. Andy Gipson
(R-Braxton) last month cited a Bible passage calling for homosexual men to be
put to death and astutely refuses to apologize.

Gipson probably got his cue from North
Carolina moral majority conservative preacher Charles L. Worley. In a sermon to
his congregation last month, Worley proclaimed that we ought to get all the
lesbians and put them into a concentration camp and gather up all the “queers
and homosexuals” and put them into another one. String up an electrified fence
all around the compounds he said to ensure they can’t escape. Go ahead and feed
them, but eventually we’d be rid of the queers and homos because they’d never
reproduce. He also went on to say that if anyone ever asked him who he’s voting
for, he’d tell ‘em, “I ain’t gonna vote for a baby killer and a homosexual
lover.” For emphasis he says that if the party he’s speaking to says, “Did you
mean to say that?” “You better believe I did.”

Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) on May 26th
speaking at the Shaumberg Central Library said that the Democrat Party “want
Hispanics to be dependent on government just like they got African Americans
dependent on government. That’s their game.”

He further stated that “Rev. Jesse
Jackson would be out of work if they weren’t dependent on government.” Now
squeaky clean good ol’ boy Walsh later went on to clarify that he wasn’t being
racist in knocking minorities, but was only hammering Democrats.

Not to be left out in this brief is
Allen West. Out of all his brain numbing quotes we’ll only repeat the latest
one. The Florida Representative and Tea Party darling token on April 9th
made an absurd comment while speaking to a group in Jensen Beach, Florida. A
misguided constituent asked, “What percentage of the American legislature do
you think are card-carrying Marxists?”

West immediately responds to the
question telling the audience, supposedly as a responsible legislature, “That’s
a fair question. I believe there’s about 78 to 81 members of the Democratic
Party that are members of the Communist Party.” The next day, Tim Edson, a West
spokesman said, “He stands by his words.”

Former CNN anchor woman and now
conservative columnist, Campbell Brown essentially states that Obama hates
women. Recently she wrote, “When I listen to President Obama speak to and about
women, he sometimes sounds too paternalistic for my taste.” Campbell further
writes, “In numerous appearances over the years — most recently at the Barnard
graduation — he has made reference to how women are smarter than men. It’s all
so tired, the kind of fake praise showered upon those one views as easy to
impress.” According to Campbell, the president is condescending to women
because he doesn’t believe anything he says about women. She uses the ‘proof is
in the pudding routine’ by mentioning a Romney campaign video titled, “The Life
of Julia,” as affirmation to her stance. But of course she ascertains that her
husband working for Romney had no bearing whatsoever on her penned words.

The all-male Catholic hierarchy giving
an ultimatum to nuns to follow the rules, by-laws and guidelines of the papacy
and stern dictates to quit pandering to women with reproductive and contraceptive
concerns need a direction change. These women, who are nuns, are on the
frontlines in medical care and the poor’s needs. The male papacy, sitting in
cushy offices need to shut-up and quit badgering all these good women. If they
really want to fix a wrong, then they need to stop paying all those pedophile male
priests they have stolen away from prosecution and turn them in. These priests
have destroyed countless altar boys’ lives while the nuns have saved countless
lives.

Roads
Always Lead to Intersection:

We all are American, whether just arriving upon these shores or having lineage traced back to colonial days. Unfortunately the
current U.S. political atmosphere dictates otherwise. To be blunt, it is the
conservatives that have created this rift in who we really are as one. They are
so intent in belittling political foes that they cannot even bring themselves
in giving President Obama partial credit on his efforts in taking down the one
responsible in orchestrating the attack on our shores and killing of thousands
of Americans...namely, Osama bin-Laden.

Democrats constantly have to be on the
defense in proving that they are Americans too and have just as much rights in
waving the stars and stripes. But in defending, the rift only widens.

Working together to build upon our
democracy is one thing, but working together to discredit one half of the other
folks in this country from within is self-defeat. Reasoning has left not only
the building, but the parking lot as well.

I am going to leave you with a photograph and video clip. The 2004 photograph depicts an American WWII veteran hugging a wounded Marine returning home from the Iraqi conflict. The seasoned veteran is grateful
for the Marine’s duties performed, but sorrowful for his everlasting wounds
inflicted. The Marine’s lost arm, leg, and blinded eyes are only what these two
men can share in what military hardships cast upon the human soul. The rest of
us can pause and feel sorry, but we will never feel the extent of what this
picture captures between these two soldiers.

The video clip, we all should relate to.
It has gone viral and was even featured on the ABC evening news. It is of a
struggling boy with cerebral palsy in a race. But his race is more than a run around the track. He slows but the little guy never stopped. Yes,
he finishes in dead last; that was predicted out of the starting blocks, but no
matter the pain, with encouragement…he finished first.

This photo and clip proves that we are
all as American as the next. Does one really think that the old soldier hugging
the young wounded Marine actually cared if one was Democrat and the other
Republican? I don’t think so. In the little boy’s race of his life, do you
think the ones encouraging him along questioned whether he was affiliated with
one party or the other? Nah, I don’t think so.

All in all they’re first fellow countrymen...American
through their eyes. One in one we are...

About Me

Entered the world as Bruce John Anderson. With a dad as Bruce and two John dangrads (grandpas), grandma thought it too confusing, hence the nickname B.J. I've had ever since I was six months old; yet some folks refer to me as simply...The Beej.

Born in Stephenville, Texas on the Sunday morn of 11/09/52 and while growing up in the Fort Worth area, I have a West Texas flair about perception in life. Currently, I’m a misplaced Texan residing in NW Pa. and that is OK, for one Texan is about equal odds to one Yankee state. This ol' Texan does indeed love the snow up here. Snow is about the only thing I know of that can even make a junkyard look pretty.

Graduated: Trinity HS (Euless, TX) in ‘71 and later from The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) in ‘84 with a Bachelors in geology.

Had my first set of children Amber (1971) & Jason (1974) as a young man and my second set Claire (2003) & Paige (2005) I had as an old man. Am married to sweetness in Veronica my wife.

I extol the science disciplines working as a microbiologist, geophysicist, chemist & geologist.

Work has taken me into 39 countries. It’s amazing witnessing firsthand the varying cultures and environs, but prefer the myriad similarities; the old man sitting on a tree stump in front of his central Sudan mud hut was the same old man sitting in his favorite rocker on a West Texas front porch; both just sitting back watching the world go by while pondering it all.

My motto in life is don't take it so seriously, it's not like it's permanent.